Bedraggled

Another visit to Houndkirk Moor on the southwestern edge of Sheffield. This time I was heading for Houndkirk Hill where rocks of millstone grit appear through the moorland vegetation. Dark clouds and sunbursts battled for supremacy but the forecast was for a dry afternoon. Over the years I have paid homage to many rocks in the Peak District. Some of them are like natural sculptures and others speak of Bronze Age habitation or historic quarrying activity.

In the changing light, I snapped several photographs up on Houndkirk Hill. Far away I could see rain moving across the landscape so perhaps I should just have returned to "Clint", parked up on Whitelow Lane. But half a mile away to the south I saw another unnamed hill and there were distant rocks that I hadn't seen before so I made my way up there along a sheep track through the dying heather.

On the unnamed hill before the rain

On the way back, the rain came. I was not dressed for it. By the time I reached sleek-silver Clint, my leonine locks were plastered to my skull, my fleece jacket was twice as heavy as normal and my trews needed hanging out to dry. Fortunately no paparazzi were around to create incriminating pictures of this bedraggled beast. 

I came home and stripped off to my red and blue striped M&S underpants, watching "Escape to the Country" with a mug of hot coffee.  What a sexy scene! Good job the BBC hadn't just filmed my own "escape to the country" or even worse, my escape from the country like a drowned rat.

50x camera zoom on The Ox Stones - over a mile away.
Other ramblers are there - no doubt in rain gear.

The depressions in the rock catch pure rainwater
which moorland grouse seek in preference to
brackish and  rather acidic drainage water.